Nicole Arteaga Suffered a Miscarriage. Then, a Pharmacist (Legally) Refused to Issue Medication.
Going from the high of announcing a pregnancy to the low of announcing a miscarriage is devastating. Nicole Arteaga, 35, a first-grade teacher in Peoria, Arizona, was already planning to take a year off from school to stay home with her 7-year-old son when she found out she was due in January.
“It would have been perfect,” she tells GoodHousekeeping.com.
But on Tuesday, June 19, she found out she lost the baby. The news was a blow, compounded by the need to choose whether to complete the process manually, through a D&C (dilation and curettage), or chemically, with misoprostol, a medication that can be prescribed for a failed pregnancy. Nicole chose the latter option; since it can be taken at home, it's often considered a more private method. Instead, however, she found herself in a very public struggle when the Walgreens pharmacist on duty refused to fill the prescription.
“I stood at the mercy of this pharmacist explaining my situation in front of my 7-year-old, and five customers standing behind, only to be denied because of his ethical beliefs,” she posted on Instagram and Facebook. “This isn’t something I wanted. He has no idea what [it’s] like to want nothing more than to carry a child to full term and be unable to do so. I left Walgreens in tears, ashamed and feeling humiliated by a man who knows nothing of my struggles but feels it is his right to deny medication prescribed to me by my doctor.” Her post has since been shared more than 30,000 times.
“It made me feel helpless,” she says now. “I didn’t have control over what was happening inside me. This is what my doctor said I could do, and now this person has control. He was taking my control, my choice of how to proceed.”
After the incident, Nicole reached out to her doctor, who, she says, was as surprised by the pharmacist’s refusal as she was. “I don’t think he’d ever had that problem before,” she says. According to Nicole, her doctor asked for the pharmacist’s information and helped her to get the prescription filled at another branch. The experience, however, left her in shock.
“I called and talked to a store manager and said I was upset,” she says. “My brain wasn’t working [during the incident]. Once it was settled, and I had the prescription, and I was at home, then I thought [to call and ask for a manager]. When I talked to her, she was trying to figure out how to handle it, and she said she was sorry things weren’t followed the way they should be followed.”
Following Nicole’s complaint to Walgreens’ corporate office and the Arizona Board of Pharmacy, Walgreens issued the following statement:
“After learning what happened, we reached out to the patient and apologized for how the situation was handled. To respect the sincerely held beliefs of our pharmacists while at the same time meeting the needs of our patients, our policy allows pharmacists to step away from filling a prescription for which they have a moral objection. At the same time, they are also required to refer the prescription to another pharmacist or manager on duty to meet the patient's needs in a timely manner. We are looking into the matter to ensure that our patients' needs are handled properly.”
GoodHousekeeping.com independently reached out to James W. Graham, a senior manager of media relations at Walgreens, who responded with the following statement:
"To meet the health care needs of our patients while respecting the sincerely held beliefs of our pharmacists, our policy allows pharmacists to step away from filling a prescription for which they have a moral objection. It’s important to note in that situation, the pharmacist also is required to refer the prescription to another pharmacist or manager on duty to meet the patient's needs in a timely manner. We are looking into this incident, and as the patient suggested this morning in a media interview we will provide additional training to all of our pharmacists on appropriately handling these situations in accordance with our policy. We also reached out to the patient over the weekend, apologizing for how the situation was handled."
As of this interview, however, Nicole says that no one from Walgreens’ corporate has reached out to her directly.
“Their statement apologizes and states their policy,” she adds. “But that wasn’t followed. I think that, if they have that policy in place, they need to monitor it and educate their staff.”
And Nicole doesn’t relish this onslaught of attention. “I don’t know how celebrities deal with it,” she say. But despite her exhaustion and recent loss, she is willing to endure the scrutiny.
“There are lots of other women who have had miscarriages,” she says. “I wanted to bring it out, spread awareness and shed light on this. I had no idea it could happen, and I thought, if I could prevent it from happening to someone else, that’s what I want to do.”
If she’d been allowed the access she was due, her life would be a lot quieter right now. “I could have just gotten through the loss of my baby, rather than everything else I’ve taken on,” she says. “But I’ve taken it on because this is so important.”
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